Percussion instruments are continuously gaining recognition not only in the orchestra but also as solo instruments and in chamber music. Today a number of works for percussion ensembles, which are similar in musical quality to string quartets or wind quintets, have achieved significance. This was never a thought at the time of Palestrina, Mozart, or Schumann! It has only been possible to achieve this recognition lately because the instrumentarium has been greatly enlarged and refined. The interest in meter, rhythm and energetic movement in general has grown and extended. The former "bang" associated with percussion has changed. Music for percussion has become very differentiated and complex.

Many young people familiar with the Orff-Instrumentarium have become interested in percussion instruments and would like to improve their playing skills on them. Preparation for the systematic and concentrated instruction to come later demands a pedagogically sound beginning in improvisation, making accompaniments to songs and movement.

This book is intended to show how young people can proceed from playful activities on simple percussion instruments to more serious and intensive work with more complex instrumentation. The 50 studies presented here should:

• enrich group percussion instruction both musi-cally and methodically
• reinforce the motivation to further technical training with more musically-demanding tasks
• provide experiences in group playing
• stimulate the student to compose his own pieces.

The 50 studies have been organized consecutively according to the number of players:

• 1-15 for one player
• 16-22 for one or two players
• 23-27 for one player with two instruments
• 28-35 for two players or groups of players
• 36-41 for three players
• 42-50 for two soloists with group accompaniment

In order that practicing not be limited to metric playing solely, studies are included which introduce free metric playing for which a special notation is used. The distance between the notes indicates the relative time. Notes written closely together are played more quickly than those written farther apart. The player determines the tempo which should then be kept throughout the study. When there is more than one player:

1. it is necessary to be able to read a score with many parts
2. many problems can be solved only through visual contact with each other.

These experiences are to be understood as goals in actual teaching practices in instrumental instruction.

No specific instruments are required for any of the studies.

Only two signs are used:

o (symbol for Tom-Tom) is used for all instruments with a short sound (e.g. woodblock, claves, templeblocks, hand drum, snare drum, bongos, congas, bass drum, etc.)

I (symbol for suspended cymbal) is used for all instruments with a sound of long duration (e.g. triangle, gong, tam-tam, etc.).

The choice of instruments will depend on what is available and should be tried out by the players. Self-made instruments may also be used. If notation for one instrument is on two lines, then an instrument which produces two tones should be chosen (bongos, congas...). In general the lower line of notation is for a lower pitched instrument. If no dynamic markings have been indicated, the players should work out some possibilities and mark them in the book. An impor-tant task in the reproduction will be to find the correct tempo for each study.

It is also possible to combine different pieces or to include an improvisation at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a piece.